September 9, 2024 at 5:30 PM - Board of Education Budget Hearing

Rationale:  The Norfolk Public School District's board of education meeting is called to order.
 

Rationale:  If any board member is absent, there will need to be a  motion to excuse the absence.

Rationale:  This is a legal meeting of the board of education, as advertised by the means specified in board policy. A complete copy of the Open Meetings Act is posted in the board room for your review. A copy of the agenda is available at the desk of the recording secretary.

Rationale: 

Welcome to the Budget Hearing for the 2024-2025 school year. The purpose of this hearing is to give taxpayers the opportunity to provide support, opposition, criticism, or suggestions and observations regarding the budget.  The hearing is for the budget only, other items will not be discussed.  There will be a review of budget items and the board will provide an opportunity for public comment. The adoption of the budget will take place by a vote during the Sept. 23rd board meeting and not at this hearing.  The budget for all the funds includes all the estimated resources of each fund, including its cash reserve.  The district is not anticipating needing to expend all of those dollars this fiscal year in each fund but does need to budget for it in its expenditures to show all resources of each fund are accounted for. 

Following our August 26th budget workshop, the Finance and Facilities Committee asked that I prepare a budget that met our district needs but did not access the full tax authority allowed and relied on more cash reserves, an option 4. That is the budget that was published and before you tonight. As you may recall option 2 property tax provided $34,697,112 and used $1 million of cash reserves. Option 3 property tax provided $33,800,191 and used $1.9 million of cash reserves. Option 4 falls more in the middle at $34,293,070 which is $404,042 less than option 2 and relies on $1.45 million of cash reserves.

Within all these budget options, the general fund is the largest and most used fund. We are budgeting $61,502,098.78 in actual expenditures in the general fund for 2024-2025 which leaves the remainder for cash reserve and county treasurer balance.  The budgeted expenditures in the general fund for 2024-2025 is a $1,734,754.14 increase (2.9%) from 2023-2024 budgeted expenditures.  That increase is for staffing cost increases, contracted services, and transportation. As in past years the budget is largely for staff.  This year, 83.47% of the general fund budget is for salary and benefits, which is close to the same percentage that was in past budgets.

All the other fund budgets are budgeted for the function each fund provides.  The other taxing fund, QCPUF, is $782,525 which includes our bond payment and estimated county treasurer balances in its budgeted resources.   There are no additional tax funds budgeted for in the Special Building Fund for the 2024/25 school year.